My RCO – Joe McHardy on winning the John Birch Scholarship
Joe McHardy at the 2009 Flentrop organ in Christ Church, Chelsea, London Joe McHardy was convinced he'd failed his FRCO earlier this year, so when he got emails telling him not only that he had passed, but been awarded the Durrant Prize, and then the John Birch Scholarship, he thought there must have been some mistake. "I had to print out the emails to persuade myself that it was all true," he said. Joe started playing the organ at age 12, studying with Simon Nieminski, then fresh from Pembroke College, Cambridge, and just appointed as Assistant…